The Next Room to Be Done

I am going to do my son's room next. I have bought the wood to build the new bed and I am thinking of ideas for his room. Hopefully I can come up with a cool theme to tie this all together.

Any ideas?

The Verdict

The verdict is in. We will be staying in this house for another 2 years at least. We have to wait for the market to come back up and for jobs to become more readily available before jumping out of such a nice house. That means I have more time to do all these rooms and make it nice and pretty.

So now, I just have to decide which direction to go.... The livingroom next to complete the downstairs (the kitchen will happen someday when I have more $$ to throw at it) or do I move on to my 5 year old son's room? I think its going to be the livingroom, but I may waver given a good reason in the other direction...

So Much to Share!!!

First of all, the finished bench. I may still add some trim to the edges and perhaps add a back, but its a good bench even if I don't do anything more to it.

I also finished the rest of the room. The dining room is now completely different than before. How great right?!!! I just love it. Now the family ends up hanging out in the diningroom instead of the other rooms in the house. Its been a lot of work, but so worth it. I even took the old brass light fixture and spray painted it graphite colored and replaces the window blinds for a cleaner streamlined look. I am really proud of how it turned out.

I really like the new light fixture too. Or rather the new look. A little spraypaint and NO MORE BRASS!! :-)

What's Next

Well, let's see. I have to finish repainting the dining room. I just couldn't stand the color as it turned out. So I started repainting it last night. I am hoping over the course of this week to complete that. The bench is just about complete. I got busy again with life and just couldn't get a couple hours to finish it up. Frustrating but true.

Once those are complete I can move on. Robert and I are thinking hard about the next room and it looks like the kitchen is losing out. We still don't know about the move/not move and a big project like the kitchen should really only be done if we are staying. So, the winner is our son's room. He needs a new wall of bookshelves and a nice bed light to read by. Just have to pick a theme or at least a general idea of what we want to do in there. Go crazy or more conservative. He is a bit more conservative, but given the choice his room with either be all pink (yup, I said pink) or look just like his sister's room. He likes to be like her. I am thinking I could make his room uniquely his and yet have it be similar to his sisters room.

She has a large mural of a tree on one of her walls. I think I like the idea of doing a tree in his room too as he has said before, but I would also add some characters from his favorite books. That would be really cool and fun. I'll post some of the ideas as I get stuff drawn up. :-)

But first I promice pictures of the bench and new diningroom color to come soon!!!!!

The Big Question

One thing about this crubby market is that you can't always get your money back out of it. This is the problem I am facing. I want so badly to finish refreshing each room in this house. As it stands now, if we had to sell today, we would be lucky to break even. All the money and repairs, the new floor, trim etc....all for no return. If we were to hold onto this house for years until the market rebounds then all these improvements will help us sell for a good price.

BUT, this assumes we keep the house for that long. We always thought we would. But I have been looking for a job for a LONG time. I am employed, but I have been trying to find a job closer to home. I don't want to keep commuting so long each day and being away from the kids so much as I spend so much time on the road. We have been thinking about moving. Movings to another area where I might have more of an opprotunity for a better job.

You would think as an accountant, this wouldn't be an issue. The only problem is I live in a state capital. Thus we have mostly state jobs. I don't want a state job because I would have to start back at a low wage.

So what do I do? Do I continue to refresh each room knowing we may not get ANY of it out of  it if we chose to move in the next month or so? Do we replace the pipes? They need replaces since they are made of galvinized steel and rusting. If we are going to move, I am not going to spend 5K on repairs to get nothing back.

I know there is no real answer to this question. But it still bothers me and has slowed down my enthusiasm for this whole house project. I wish there was an easy answer. I wish the housing market was better. I wish I could find a job I liked more. I guess while we are wishing for miracles, how about I wish to win the lottery too so I can fund all this..

I know its taking me awhile, but here is a preview of the bench. Its been a crazy couple weeks as my son turned 5 years old so I haven't really had time to finish it. Here is the general idea of where I am going with this.